Category Archives: John Frusciante

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RHCP Current news: Anthony Kiedis and a story about his bedtime babysitting with Cher has made it into the current edition of Q Magazine’s 120 best rock stories article. Check out the details HERE.

For everyone going to see RHCP in Manilla, have a brilliant time! My friends Francis and JMS are going to be there so watch out for two idiots (and maybe a pineapple?!) seriously rocking out! Francis tweeted to Flea a couple of years back about seeing the band in the Philippines and was amazed when he got a reply saying the band should play there… I’m so happy for you both that it’s happening and for everyone else attending! I know a lot of you have waited so long to see the band. BTW We’d love to see any photos!

Finally, this site… I’m really sorry about the pauses- real life just keeps getting in the way and I’ve been having issues over my site domain names but hopefully all is sorted now and I can get going again! All outstanding comments have been approved, new plans are being made for the content of the site and to celebrate the return as a kick off, I’m uploading all of my magazine scans that are outstanding. I have some more to add but I’ve kicked off with a massive upload of John Frusciante articles thanks to the wonderful Stephen Mahon who donated his RHCP magazines to my collection for us all to share.

If anyone is interested, Richard Alan White has contacted me to say he is selling some of his photographs of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, including Anthony Kiedis, taken at the Mother’s Milk aftershow party on the top of the West Hollywood Hyatt Hotel on Sunset Blvd, back in September (22nd) 1989.

The photos have been locked in a safe for the past 25 years and were recently uncovered by Richard. A double set prints were originally made (some of the original photos were given to Anthony) and then the negatives were put into a vault and basically forgotten about until recently when they were ‘re-discovered’.

If you are interested in finding out any more details such as prices, sizes, print runs and to see more of the images for sale, further information can be found HERE (Please note; these photos are initially for sale for three days only)

I’m trying to play catch up here and one of the things I’ve done is to scan and upload some more back issue magazines featuring the Chili Peppers that I’ve recently added to my collection; so here are the latest offerings

During the period when you left the band, you were addicted to heroin. How much do you still think of those times?

There’s a one page interview with John Frusciante where he talks about the pressures of being in the band and discussed the period when he used heroin as being a valuable experience that he doesn’t regret.

There’s also an in-depth interview in Guitar World with Dave Navarro from 1996 talking about his life, Jane’s Addiction and RHCP’s One Hot Minute, a Red Hot Chili Peppers’ discograpy from 1992, a mention in an article where RHCP came third in a list of the funniest moments in rock for their infamous sock wearing (there is also a full page photo for anyone interested…), a review of RHCP in London togther with a news item about Flea & a brief interview with Flea talking about working on ‘Bust a Move’ track.

Then, in the middle of the posh hotel bar, he stands up turns around and drops his trousers. A lot of fidgety hand movements around his groin area follows. The he swings around, trousers and pants around the knees, his arse smiling to everyone present and both arms open wide in declaration.

There’s a forest of black tangled pubes looking me in the eye as Antwan’s kingsize whopper hangs loosely, snug in its white sock. A few heads turn. I break down in laughter and Antwan scoops them all up and puts ‘em away again.

A couple of articles have also been added over on AnthonyKiedis.net e.g a news item about Anthony breaking his wrist in 1997 and a review of the RHCP tour where they were accompanied by the Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam and what happened when AK celebrated his birthday. There is also a very early interview from 1988 when AK is mostly interviewed (with a few additions by Flea) and he is discussing wearing socks and sex.

An interview with Chad Smith for Billboard, that’s just been released, has confirmed that John Frusciante will not be appearing with the other Red Hot Chili Peppers members when RHCP is inducted into the Rock in Rock Hall of Fame; he also confirms that Anthony Kiedis is on the mend and that the band are preparing for the release of another single off I’m With You:

That said, Smith expects the group to be on the road for most of the rest of this year. With Kiedis “on the mend,” the Chili Peppers hit the road again on March 29 in Tampa, Fla., before heading to Europe in June, with some U.S. make-up dates in August and in the fall. So a new album certainly isn’t likely until the end of 2013 at the earliest.

Meanwhile, the Chili Peppers are also prepping for the release of a another single from “I’m With You” (“Brendan’s Death Song”) as well as the group’s April 14 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Smith says the group, which on that night will also include past drummers Jack Irons and Cliff Martinez, will perform at the ceremony as well as host a private party the night before the inductions. Guitarist John Frusciante, however, will not be attending.

“He didn’t feel comfortable coming, which we totally respect,” Smith says. “We asked him… He said, ‘I’m just not really comfortable with that, but good luck and thanks for inviting me.’ It was all good. He’s the kind of guy, I think, that once he’s finished with something he’s just on to the next phase of his life. The Chili Peppers are not really on his radar right now.”

But, Smith adds, that won’t dampen the celebration in Cleveland. “I’m very pleased about it,” he says. “Music’s not a competition. Yeah, you like to win Grammys and stuff, but (the Rock Hall) is different. It’s not like the flavor of the month or the flavor of the year; it’s for a long career we’ve been fortunate enough to have. I’m very humbled, because the people who are in there…it’s not a joke. It’s very cool. So we’re looking forward to it. It’ll be a fun thing. There’s no pressure, like, ‘Are we gonna win?,’ none of that s***. We can just go and have a good time and celebrate with our friends and our families and our fans.”

Red Hot Chili Peppers feature several times in the latest edition of Rolling Stone to hit the bookstands! (It’s the issue with Ziggy Stardust on the cover).
Many thanks to Melanie for letting us know about this and sharing the scans with us.

Transcript:

Red Hot Chili Peppers

The 02, Dublin,November 4th 2011

When he joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2009, guitarist Josh Klinghoffer faced the tough task of convincing fans that he was a worthy replacement for the band’s recently departed slinger, John Frusciante. This Dublin stop on the Chilis’ I’m With You tour proves that Klinghoffer is highly proficient at playing Frusciante’s complex tunes, even if he never sounds as fluid as the man himself. The set list is heavy on the group’s hit period, from Blood Sugar Sex Magik-fueled early Nineties to the early-2000s standouts on Californication and By The Way. “Scar Tissue” sends the crowd into hysterics, and Anthony Kiedis wails an impressive rendition of “Under The Bridge,” whilst still finding time to tell security to go easy on an unruly fan, forward to the end, the band plays a jammed out cover of Neil Young’s 1969 classic “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere,” before wrapping with a frenetic “Give It Away.” Frusciante’s defection may have wounded the Chilis, but it hasn’t been a mortal blow.

Transcript:

Chilis Postpone Tour Due to Kiedis Foot Injury

The Red Hot Chili Peppers have postponed their US tour, which was set to launch on January 20th, so that frontman Anthony Kiedis can recover from multiple foot injuries. The frontman recently underwent surgery to remove a crushed sesamoid bone and correct a detached flexor tendon in his foot,” said the band. Kiedis is expected to fully recover in time for the rescheduled trek, which kicks of March 29th in Tampa, Florida. The Chilis will also be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 14th.

The scans are for your info only; if you can buy this magazine please go out and do so You can also subscribe to an online version of the magazineHERE

Look Around is the latest song to be chosen as a single from RHCP’s I’m With You album and two videos have now been released to accompany the song-one the actual music video and the other a behind the scenes look (both below).

The video is based upon four rooms; one for each of the four band members. Each room roughly reflects the band member it belongs too and includes their own art and belongings among the props! The band performed with each person mostly confined to their own room although Anthony Kiedis dances through the rooms at various times. It was filmed in the round in just four takes! The video was directed by Robert Hales. Source

Welcome to another Red Hot year with loads more Chili Peppers concert dates planned so hopefully lots more interviews, photos and news to come!

This website hasn’t been abandonned; real life has got massively in the way this year but hopefully the worst of that is over and I can get back to updating the site.

Just a couple of things… RHCP’s I’m With You album cover was voted the best of the year in the latest edition of Q Magazine. See article HERE

And I’ve just added a gallery of images painted by a John Frusciante fan who painted an album of pictures inspired by John Frusciante’s solo music-song by song! The completed album was sent to JF and the artist received confirmation that John had received the album. Find out more and see the images HERE

Anthony Kiedis was interviewed by Rolling Stone shortly after he found out:

Did you get emotional?
The most emotional part for me was thinking about Hillel Slovak. That was where it got me. I felt very good about it, but I felt very much like our work has only just begun. Now that we’ve got Josh in the band, we have a chance to make some great records over the next few years. But there was something about going back and thinking about something that we started in a living room with Hillel Slovak. Because he’s no longer with us, it seemed emotional and beautiful. It’s really kind of his induction that I’m most excited about. He’s a beautiful person that picked up a guitar in the 1970s and didn’t make it out of the 1980s, and he is getting honored for his beauty.

Do you feel weird about getting in while the band is still so active? Some bands say they worry it conveys the impression that they are done.
I don’t feel weird about it. I know what the next few years look like for our band, and I’m incredibly excited to be playing with these guys. I feel like our creative well is running over. I don’t think it’s going to stigmatize us. Nothing has the power to diminish the love we have for what we’re doing right now. It’s just an interesting interlude to be accepted into the Hall of Fame while we’re still vibrantly going about our business.

One of the cool things about it is that all of the past inductees vote. So, I don’t know, Paul McCartney had the chance to vote for you.
I have an absolute smile on my face while you say that.

And you’ll be on the wall in Cleveland near Elvis Presley.
As a kid, I was anti-Elvis. I just didn’t get it. Once I stopped being so judgmental I found the great wonder of Elvis and all that he did. I was a little self-centered gutter punk in the early 1980s and all I wanted to do was diss everybody. I remember going to Graceland as a kid and talking shit while I was there. Now if I went there, I’d think about all the great things he did and what a great musician he was.

Do you think that John Frusciante will come to the induction?
Ummm… Wow. It would be a guess on my behalf on whether or not he’ll come. I can’t imagine that he would, but it’s a “you never know” kind of thing. I haven’t talked to him in quite a while. I don’t know where he’s at these days. He’ll obviously be more than welcome, and embraced if he does. If he doesn’t, that’s cool too.

I’m guessing they’ll bring your former drummer Cliff Martinez in too, but I really don’t know.
I would imagine that he would want to come. Both he and Jack Irons would want to come.

English Translation(Sorry it’s late here and I’ve just run it through Google translate but it will give you the idea; I’ll try to get a proper translation of it if I can but most of my Italian friends have been running around Germany/are about to go to see RHCP at the weekend).

September 5, 2011 – One has purple hair, bare feet, tattoos, T-shirt of Thelonius Monk: a kid has the look, but do a little ‘marked by time. The other is dressed all in black, has a hoodie, a hint of a beard, a tuft. It has the eyes and face as a boy, looked younger than his 31 years and still seems a little ‘intimidated by the situation.

Flea and Josh Klinghoffer are, or the soul of rhythm (and not only) Red Hot Chili Peppers and the “new” guitarist from Italy have gone today to present “I’m With You”, the disc out of the seventh last (our review here), the first in five years and the first since the second exit from the group of John Frusciante.

Flea is gentle, smooth answers to every question, from the choice of shirt – his love for jazz is well known: “I like it, who does not like Thelonious Monk? As I like the Beatles and as I like to breathe .. “. Then you need to talk about the disc, the new formation: the feeling that the two damage is of great harmony, Josh (who had previously played with the band on tour, for this “new” should be put in quotes) was inserted to perfection, is in full harmony with the rest of the group: “We have a democratic process of composition, each can have its say, and Josh has not only entered, brought his vision,” says Flea. “When we started writing, two years ago,” says Josh, “It ‘was all very natural, we have learned to know each other. There were great difficulties if not now starting things strange to see so many people … Even if they play with this band is a matter of course, we immediately got in touch. ”

“Josh is a very different person from John,” says Flea. “I was very accustomed to him, we played together for so long that now we had our own language. With Josh I learned a new language: I had to leave the past behind and immerse myself in this. ”

Flea has a peaceful relationship with time, and it shows, repeats all the time: “Five years?” Says the inevitable question about the long pause. “We were on tour for ‘Stadium Arcadium’, we took a break, we started to write, and here we are. It ‘was the gravitational pull of our hearts: we ended up playing music. If I think of our tradition, as we started in the ’80s, and where we are now, with arenas, stadiums … Do a great value to our way of doing things. It’s fucking awesome! Then I do not know if it will take another five years for a hard … I know hardly what I will do tomorrow, I am that I am grateful to be on tour and to communicate my ideas, to talk to people. Then we’ll see. “.

As in the past, Flea has no remorse or regrets. Indeed, his mystical streak comes out here too: “I have great memories of what we did: we were so stupid, the fuckers who did not know what they did, who went around mushy … Our Guardian Angels have enabled us to survive , to find something within us that made us grow. No guru, no psychiatrist could have indicated a better way. ” A theme, that of the past, who returns at one of the most intense moments of the album, “Brendan’s death song.” “And ‘dedicated to our friend, a promoter of LA that one function of the first to give us a gig: at that time were not any and he played a major role in the growth of the band, with what he did. Gave us confidence, we felt respected. The first day we played with Josh was one in which we heard about his death. We improvised and that song was born. ”

The mystical vein of Flea returns as he recounts his relationship with music: “I’m a fucking hippie … for me the music comes from a divine place. What I can do is put in a position to slide, to get her to live my life in a location near to this divine place. But I am not religious … ”

Josh looks, smiles, occasionally intervenes with a joke, in a very polite, shy, but not too much. Flea when we go away for a moment in the bathroom, says he has no problem playing the songs that the band has recorded with other guitarists: “John had a problem with the songs ‘One Hot Minute’, the ones that the band was recorded with Dave Navarro. I’ve bought that album and I loved that tour was also the first time I’ve seen the Peppers live. But I know that not even particularly like these other songs. ” He says he wants to continue his solo career: “In the pauses of the tour will my music. But I do not think that will play with John again, “he says – Josh has played in many of Frusciante solo albums, he has recorded a double name and two under the name Ataxia. “John is quite focused on his things, lately.” As for his future role in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he laughs: “I will be unconscious, become toxic, steal cars. I can not wait “, and then sends a greeting to his Italian friends, Marlene Kuntz and Afterhours, with whom he played live a few times.

Live to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers instead, you have to wait in December, 10 in Turin and Milan 11.

EDIT: Updated with the three song videos and also the interview with a transcript :

Red Hot Chili Peppers have appeared on UK TV on Jools Holland’s show for the second time this week (tonight’s show was recorded along with Tuesday’s live footage). The show, like Tuesday, opened with RHCP playing the Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie, they also played Look Around (screen caps below) and Anthony Kiedis and Josh Klinghoffer were briefly interviewed: They talked about the departure of John Frusciante & Josh joining/ fitting into the Red Hot Chili Peppers; Anthony Kiedis mentioned having Everly Bear with him in London and showing him some of the sights (before Everly Bear has to stay in school and the world ends next year!) and he also said how much he enjoyed the set by Bjork. The show again ended with Monarchy of Roses.

Many thanks to Ana for sourcing these and pkrips0791 xxxxWGDxxxx for uploading them!

Video Transcript:

Jools Holland: And now I’m delighted to welcome Anthony & Josh from the Red Hot Chili Peppers at this table, here, direct. Very nice to see you both. Welcome back to the show.

Anthony Kiedis: Thank you.

Jools Holland:OK great. Band sounding great. Very good new record but it’s five years since the last record and er… how come you left it sorta so long? Five years, is that right?

Anthony Kiedis: Umm..It seems like five minutes and it’s never really that long. Yeah, maybe since we actually recorded the record before it but then you know we go out on the road for years on end, took a little break and found Josh.

Jools Holland:Exactly. And how did you find Josh?

Anthony Kiedis:Umm Josh is a friend who happened to be in our circle of people and …umm… it wasjust kinda perfect and magical transition where our previous guitar player, John, was ready to go and do something else and we said that sounds sensible, and then we thought about it for a while and really just let it come to us where we should go. And instead of forcing it in some weird, uncomfortable, awkward direction, we drifted towards the comfortable beauty of Josh.

Jools Holland:Lovely, comfy Josh.

Anthony Kiedis:Yeah right. Which has been. Not to praise him too much wildly on television while he’s sitting there

Jools Holland:No sorry.. yeah.. but [talking over Anthony Kiedis]

Anthony Kiedis:… it’s been the greatest thing that could have ever happened to us

Jools Holland:It sounds great as well. You sound beautiful. Do you feel as though you’ve blended straight in?

Josh Klinghoffer: Umm… yeah… I mean I’ve known those guys these guys for a while so umm yes, you know…